Platform Team/Package Management System

Summary

Sweets is a Package Management System based on Zero Install, a decentralized cross-distribution software installation system. It is intended to distribute various software projects created in the Sugar ecosystem, such as libraries, sugar itself, and sugar activities.

This new distribution method is initiated assuming that:

• The method to share software projects should to be as convenient as possible.
• It is important to stimulate users into becoming doers, to modify existing activities, and to share the results of their experiments with other people, i.e., a distribution method should handle different variants of the same project.
• This distribution method is not intended to be the only one, but is targeted more towards direct distribution—from software creators to software users.

The purpose is to create a new distribution method instead of reusing:

1. .xo bundles
   • Work smoothly only for pure python activities, and only if all (and the same) dependencies are installed on all systems. They stop working smoothly if activities use non-standard dependencies or contain binaries.
   • But, are not effective in supporting the use of multiple versions of software, e.g., the results of experiments (the work) of different doers, simultaneously. Users must manually handle the variety of activity versions, e.g., sort out all the local bundles or directories in ~/Activities.
2. native packages
   • Not the shortest way to connect developers with users.
   • In most cases, they don't support multiple versions of the same project.
   • They don't work at all for sharing results of experiments.

At the same time, existing distribution methods are reused in Sweets:

1. .xo bundles is a subset of the Sweets workflow
   • It is possible to bundle an entire directory as a sweet project to use it as a regular .xo file.
2. native packages
   • Sweets is not intended to create one more GNU/Linux distribution. It distributes only projects that people create within the Sugar community; all other software, i.e., dependencies, will be reused from native packages.
   • For cases like Sugar deployments, using the more centralized, regular repositories (third party or official GNU/Linux distributions with native packages) makes more sense. These native packages of Sugar software will be included in Sweets, as well. When people start using Sweets on top of these Sugar distributions, they will have the chance to choose between natively packaged Sugar components and components that came directly from software creators.
   • It is possible, when there is a need, to automatically package sweets into native packages. See Sweets Distribution, for example.

See also the initial release notes.

Zero Install basis

Sweets is entirely based on Zero Install. Sweets might be treated as a tools and infrastructure wrapper around Zero Install. See Zero Install's home page, http://0install.net/, for detailed information. And the design page in particular.

Glossary

Harmonic Distribution

A systematic approach to supporting the full cycle of discovery, learning, collaboration, and development within the Sugar Learning Platform ecosystem. Harmonic Distribution consists of software, services, and practices that make interacting within the Sugar community more useful and complete. Harmonic Distribution consists of two major parts, the Sweets Distribution and the Sugar Network.

Sweets Distribution

A set of repositories that provide base Sugar software within heterogeneous environments including the most popular GNU/Linux distributions and hardware platforms within the Sugar community. Sweets Distribution provides the easiest way to launch Sugar and start exploring the rest of the Sugar related content using the Sugar Network.

Sugar Network

A system that is designed to share within the Sugar community different kinds of content, e.g., Sugar Activities, artifacts created by Sugar Activities, books, lessons, reviews, comments, questions, etc. It uses social network mechanisms, to setup relationships between community members intending to improve Sugar Network content. The Sugar Network consists of one global server and an arbitrary number of distributed servers to support people who don't have direct access to the global one, e.g., due to lack of Internet connectivity.

Further reading

• Sweets Usage - A guide to know how to launch software using Sweets.
• Sweets Packaging - A guide to know how to make your software accessible via Sweets.
• Infrastructure Map - An overview of the Sweets software world.

Getting involved

• Report on bugs or feature requests.
• Read the HACKING file to know how to contribute with code.
• Subscribe to the sugar-devel mailing list and email with [SWEETS] subject tag.
• Type the magic word "sweets" and ask your question on IRC channels, #sugar (not logged) or #sugar-newbies (logged).

Resources

• Sources.
• Recipe files specification.